I've had some odd experiences with the game difficulty recently when playing with friends. Simply put, the AI difficulty seemed quite a bit higher than what the end game results screen showed. This might be due to my MMR being a lot higher than my friends' MMR, which perhaps causes the game to not average out the difficulty properly. My MMR is at 75 right now, and I think the friends I was playing with had an MMR around the high 30s to low 40s range.

I played two matches on In Shock, one with a 4 man squad, and another with a 3 man squad. The latter match was also a mentor match, with a level one player who didn't really know what he was doing. When I was with the 4 man squad, the difficulty was 48%, and with the 3 man squad, it was 43%. Regardless, I felt the difficulty was a little harder than what the game showed. 5th Council enemies needed two 80 damage Strikes to go down, whereas it usually takes one 80 damage Strike in my typical experience with them, playing with randoms in the 40-50% difficulty range. Enemy melee damage was 27, through 50% damage reduction, which seems a little too high for this particular difficulty range.

Moreover, playing with my Ignis Harec, I wasn't able to kill regular 5th Council enemies in one headshot. I've played matches around the 55% range and was still able to kill regular enemies in one headshot, so it seemed strange to me. Perhaps this is just a peculiarity with the In Shock mission.

There was a 50% difficulty match on A Low Blow which seemed a lot harder than it should have been, with enemies having boosted health and damage, and spawning more often. It wasn't too hard for me, but my friends were having a tough time dealing with the AI, especially during the first section. The Elite Captains were doing about 120-130 damage with their incendiary pistols, which seems a little too much for 50% difficulty. Rocket troopers were also downing teammates in one shot, which seemed to surprise them. Not quite sure how much damage they were doing though. They usually down anyone in one hit that's not 5th Council at the difficulties I'm used to.

Another match was with a few different players, but was a 4 man squad, playing A Weapon from the Past at 57% difficulty. In that match, enemies also were dealing more damage than I would expect, and they had more health too. The spawn rate of enemies was also quite high on both sections, whereas usually there's a bit of a gap between one group spawning and the next. This was most noticeable during the first section, where there was a constant influx of dropships; sometimes two at once. Additionally, rather than there being 4-5 enemies per dropship, it was usually around 6-8 enemies.

I played with another group of friends whose MMR was around the 60% range, and whilst the match difficulty was around 65% difficulty, the actual difficulty was a lot higher. I've played matches in the 60-75% range with friends in a full squad during the Hades update, and I've never experienced enemies being this tough at that difficulty.

Regular 5th Council enemies had about 200 health, Wardogs had a little over 300 health, Hades soldiers had about 500. The mine layers on White Noise and Mind Over Matter had around 300-400 health, and their mines were more durable than usual, perhaps around 250 health. Enemy melee damage was around 45-50, through 50% damage reduction. Riflemen had very high ranged damage, something like 30-40 damage per rifle bullet at medium ranges, with a higher fire rate. Hades and 5th Council shotgunners would one shot wound people that weren't Hades or 5th Council characters, as they were doing about 130 damage at close range. Wardog shotgunners could down a 5th Council character in three shots at close-medium range. Elites also had a lot more health than usual, with the Hades Brutes on Hanging by a Thread having about 700-800 health, whilst also moving faster. Enemies were also more resistant to push effects, as they didn't seem to get pushed as far as usual.

It was difficult to clear enemies quickly whilst going for objectives, as their high health and damage meant we had to play pretty conservatively. There aren't very many characters that can really output that much damage to clear enemies fast enough. We mostly just had to camp around Valeria's E.R. Bridge and heal up from that whilst picking enemies off, as a single rifleman could down a 5th Council character in a burst or two, and a whiffed Grapple or Strike against even one enemy was usually a death sentence.

I would say the enemies were doing a little more ranged damage than they do on Insane difficulty, whilst also having about two or three times more health. I don't really mind high damage enemies, but when they have high health too, it takes far too long to clear them, and the whole map drags out into an almost stalemate. This is despite having maxed out weapons with all the damage upgrades.

Even though we beat these maps, it took us a lot longer than usual and there were more deaths, so our scores and rewards weren't really all that great, which made the whole thing kind of pointless.

When I queue up on my own, and play with randoms, the matches don't seem quite as difficult, even when the difficulty level is roughly the same. Likewise, if I'm playing with one or two friends, rather than as as full squad, the difficulty doesn't seem too bad, even it's in the 50-60% range.

I would like to help introduce some newer players to the game, but it doesn't really make the best impression for them when the regular AI enemies are harder than usual. I generally have more fun playing with friends than with randoms, but it seems hard to do currently due to the difficulty spikes unless you reduce the teams' average MMR to the 40-50% range.

Anyway, has anyone else had similar experiences? I've mostly been playing with randoms in solo queue since the Spacelords update, so I don't have too many examples.

I don't really like posting stuff up online, but here you go.



Also, some friends and I beating Destroyer of Worlds in about 5 minutes.





I reached that MMR around the end of April, though I eventually got tired of trying to maintain it, both because it was relatively pointless and because getting stuck in ridiculous Antagonist matches was quite frustrating. I think around the time the Tolchok came out and the game was given away for free on Steam, I spent about 10-12 hours lowering it to about 45% by AFKing in Antagonist mode. Most of my observations of how weak the AI enemies were in high MMR invasions was during this time. As an aside, even their movement speed seemed affected, as they were quite literally moving in slow motion.

After that, I just lost a lot of enthusiasm for the game. My MMR would go up and down a bit, but was generally around the 70s. However, I would occasionally lower it by forming suicide squads with friends. I haven't really been playing this game much throughout the Summer, I just came back recently to try out Rak and attempt to gather a few missing weapons before the new update.

It seems that the MMR system has been changed recently, so that it only increases if you beat a map that has a difficulty within about 10% of your MMR. Most of my usual friends seemed to have stopped playing this game, so when I play with randoms, the difficulty is usually within the 40-50% range.

I've also beaten all the maps on Very Hard in Solo mode, and I find it to be quite relaxing compared to some of the craziness I've had to deal with online. Assuming that the new Training Mode offers the same rewards, it doesn't seem like it would be a bad way of grinding Gold. Although, we'll have to see, I suppose.

Nemo …".Personally, I find anything below around 65-70% difficulty to be pretty easy"....mah....for 4 Very good Riders ….only 1 is no good the mission is failed….

Usually, I find that the players that are playing at over 60% difficulty know what they're doing, and so the maps aren't really too much of a hassle. I've sometimes found matches in the 50-60% difficulty range to be more difficult, simply because you may have one or two players who don't contribute all that much. However, I can often reasonably carry most teams through most maps by just playing Konstantin or Kuzmann and clearing trash and holding all the aggro.

This has happened to me recently, on In Shock, on the 09 patch. 5th Council enemies were dealing 173 damage in one Strike, and took about 6-7 80 damage Strikes to kill. The Beholder, Beholder Tentacles, and Kuzmann also had far higher health than normal. We had 35 seconds to pull the levers to save Shae, during the electrocution segments. Almost managed to win it, but we still lost even though the Antagonist was friendly.

My MMR was 70 at the time, with most of my friends probably being around the 60-70 range as well. The Antagonist had 52 MMR, and was level 102. He was out-leveled by all the other Raiders, the lowest of whom was 130.

I was hoping that this would have been fixed with the 09 patch, since it seemed that the MMR of the Raiders and the Antagonist had to be within around 5-10% of each other, which would have prevented the AI from being overly weak or overly strong.

I've done a little testing with friends during this patch, and when I invaded them at 75 MMR, the AI were fairly weak. The enemies were doing about 25 melee damage with a Strike. In terms of health, Hades soldiers went down in two Strikes, 5th Council and Wardog soldiers went down in one. Wardog and 5th Council Snipers went down in one Strike, Hades Snipers in two. Wardog Captains went down in two Strikes, Hades Captains in three. Wardog Brutes went down in two Strikes, Hades Brutes in about four or five. Raiders generally had longer timers to hit switches and the like, and bosses and objectives had less health. I think they had about 75-80 seconds to hit the levers to save Shae on In Shock, when I invaded them.

The average MMR of the Raiders was about 65.

I did try to have a low MMR friend invade us, but we couldn't find each other on matchmaking. He had about 40 MMR, and I had about 80. The other Raiders were in the 60-70 range or so.

I think perhaps the system might try to adjust the difficulty based on levels as well as MMR, so that a lower level Antagonist might have stronger AI helping them, whilst a higher level Antagonist will have weaker AI. I'm not quite sure how to test that, however.

Anyway, it still seems the best way to deal with this is to lower your MMR after a certain point, either by playing a friendly Antagonist or by forming a squad and throwing matches. High difficulty PvE matches don't seem to offer that much of a difference in rewards to offset the increased challenge anyway.

Introduction

I've seen quite a few threads about players complaining about the MMR system right now, so I want to recount some of my experiences as well as my general impressions of this system, as someone whose MMR has generally been in the 80-90 range for the past few weeks, and who has almost reached level 150.

Typically, I'm usually playing with friends in a group, rather than in solo queue or playing as an Antagonist, so most of my experience is in that setting. However, I've played a lot of games in solo queue with randoms, as well as some Antagonist invasions at a high MMR, so I can talk about my experiences there as well.

I'll split this post up into a few different sections, but to put it succinctly, under this current system, having a high MMR is extremely punitive in both a PvE and PvP context, as both a Raider and an Antagonist, and if you play with randoms or with friends. About the only thing one can do to make the system a bit 'fairer', and to reduce queue times, is to deliberately lose games to drop your MMR back to around the 50-60 range, where I imagine most of the playerbase is.

Furthermore, scaling the difficulty of the AI enemies using the differences in MMR between the Raiders and the Antagonist is not a very well thought out system. I've currently lost three matches to AFK Antagonists because the AI enemies were extremely overpowered, and have had quite a few matches where a low MMR Antagonist was basically carried to victory by the AI. On the other hand, if I invade when I have an MMR that's in the 80-90 range, not only do I have to wait about 30-40 minutes to find a match, but the AI are incredibly weak and are hardly a threat to the Raider team, and bosses and objectives have extremely low health as well.

PvE Experience

In Solo Queue

Matchmaking is somewhat random here, as I sometimes run into friends or other veteran players who know what they're doing, but oftentimes, I'm being paired with lower level players who really don't know what they're doing at all, both in general terms as well as completing the objectives of whatever map we're playing. On certain maps that require some coordination to complete objectives, such as Short Fused, Low Blow, In Medias Res, etc, I'm often the only player doing the objectives and gathering Aleph, whilst the other players are usually just running around aimlessly. Moreover, because of my higher MMR, the difficulty of the map usually increases into the 50-60% difficulty range, even with lower level/newer players on the team. Whilst this difficulty is fairly easy for me, newer players are usually not used to the increased enemy damage, and tend to die more often, which sometimes necessitates me to have to babysit them, lest they keep wasting lives.

I don't really mind carrying newer players through matches, although it usually requires me to go play Konstantin or Kuzmann and clear enemies constantly, or play a character that can handle the objectives mostly on their own, like Ginebra or Hans. Overall, playing with randoms somewhat limits my choice in characters, and can be quite stressful and/or frustrating. Queue times can also be quite long. Losing on a blueprint roll that you've been farming for for a while, after you've pretty much carried a whole team, is also rather annoying.

Playing with friends

Whilst you do get instant queue times when you're in a squad of four players, if your friends are also at a high MMR, the PvE difficulty becomes very challenging, if not downright broken at times. I've had matches on In Medias Res and Weapon from the Past, at around 75% difficulty, where the AI enemies had greatly enhanced health and damage, and were dealing 96-106 melee damage in one Strike, despite my having 50% damage reduction to Strikes from all enemies. Perhaps this was some sort of bug, but even so, the fact that both enemy health and enemy damage go up as the difficulty increases just makes matches last even longer, and places more emphasis on weapon upgrades. Prior to the Hades update, only enemy damage increased as the difficulty got higher, but now enemies are even bigger bullet sponges, and take even longer to clear.

I wouldn't mind this increased difficulty if it actually led to increased rewards, but I've not really noticed a huge change in rewards as my MMR, and the difficulty level, have increased. Perhaps more annoyingly, the recent patch has reduced the contribution of the difficulty level to the mission score. So now, even if my friends and I slog through a mission of extremely tough enemies, because it takes us longer and we oftentimes die more, our score is usually below 8, and our rewards are even less than they normally were.

PvP Experience

In Solo Queue, as a Raider

Matchmaking is, again, somewhat random here. However, I have still had plenty of matches where a level 100+ Antagonist in the 50-60 MMR range has invaded, whilst two or three of my teammates were obviously new players, whose levels were in the single digits. Whilst the AI enemies weren't ridiculously overpowered in these circumstances, they were still a moderate threat, and were usually not getting cleared very quickly by my other teammates, if they weren't just outright dying to them. Such games usually aren't very fun for me, as I mostly have to do everything; clear enemies, kill elites, gather Aleph, do objectives, look out for teammates, and hunt down the Antagonist. I'm sure the newer players weren't having much of a fun time getting beaten down by the AI or by a higher level Antagonist, either.

Oftentimes, the Antagonist player in these situations is hardly a 'bad' player at all, but the system seems to try to balance things out by making the AI more deadly to compensate for MMR differences.

With friends, as a Raider

Perhaps my biggest frustration with the game at the moment, is when an Antagonist invades when I'm playing with friends who also have a high MMR. Even if the Antagonist has an MMR in the 70-80 range, the AI enemies usually remain just as tough, if not even more so, than the ones you'll find at around the +75% difficulty range. In these situations, the Antagonist hardly needs to do anything to win a match, as the AI enemies are so deadly they'll quickly kill any Raider that is caught unawares. I've had matches where the AI enemies were doing anywhere between 100-200+ melee damage in one Strike, despite my having 50% melee damage reduction. Their ranged damage was also much higher than usual, with even one rifleman being able to take down a 5th Council character within one or two seconds of focused fire.

It's pretty much either an automatic loss if an Antagonist invades when I'm playing with friends, or a very long, grueling match that hardly gives any good rewards even if we do pull off a win, due to the number of deaths and how long it takes to complete the mission.

I've even had lower MMR friends invade me from time to time, players who are skilled enough to have reached Rank 16-18 multiple times prior to the Hade update, who've expressed great surprise about how deadly their AI compatriots were, and how they were getting less kills than the AI.

As I've mentioned before, I've also lost matches to AFK Antagonists because the AI had so much health and dealt so much damage we couldn't make any headway in completing objectives. These Antagonists usually had an MMR around the 40-50 range, or lower.

As an Antagonist

I've done a few Antagonist invasions when I've been at around 85% MMR. I'd try to do more, but in my experience, queue times to find a match were routinely 30 to 40 minutes, or even longer. Of the invasions I've done when I was at high MMR, the main thing I noticed was how the weak the AI enemies were, in terms of their damage, their health and their spawn rate.

Wardog and 5th Council enemies were going down in one Strike by higher level Raiders, and in two Strikes by lower level Raiders. So, I'd estimate their health to be less than 80. Moreover, their damage was very low. I've seen shotgunners shoot Alien characters at close range and only do about half their health in damage. The enemies' melee Strikes were also very weak, doing around 30 or so damage to low level Raiders, who don't have much passive damage reduction. Elite enemies were also doing far less damage and had far less health. I saw Hades Snipers shoot Raiders and weren't even able to wound them in one shot, and Hades Brutes went down in about four or five Strikes.

When I've been invaded by Antagonists, regular Wardog and 5th Council enemies would take three to four 80 damage Strikes to go down, with Hades enemies taking about five to six Strikes. They were also quite capable of killing Raiders very quickly by themselves, without any real interference from the Antagonist, if the Raiders made any mistakes.

Bosses and objectives also had far less health and were far easier than what I normally experience in PvE, both with or without an Antagonist being present. On Breath of Hope, a Sturzenegger Ginebra did about 30% of an Orb's health with five shots, despite not even hitting the weak point. A level 3 Mikah shooting at an Orb's weakpoint with her default weapon, did about 80% of the Orb's health in one magazine. There were also hardly any enemy spawns during the boss fight itself, although the riflemen were hardly a threat anyway.

On In Shock, Kuzmann got taken down in about two or three minutes, and the Raiders had about 120 seconds to pull the levers when Shae was being electrocuted. When I'm playing against an Antagonist on In Shock, I usually only get about 40 seconds to pull the levers. We also once had only 34 seconds to get to the extraction point on Hanging by a Thread, when playing against an Antagonist.

Enemy spawns were also less frequent and in lower amounts than what I normally experience when I'm playing as a Raider, with or without an Antagonist.

Overall, trying to win a match as an Antagonist when you have a high MMR is an uphill struggle, and the AI enemies hardly contribute at all. This is pretty much the exact opposite experience of when I'm invaded by an Antagonist when I'm at a high MMR, as the AI enemies there are still very deadly.

Conclusion

I don't really see the point of having an MMR system when the playerbase is this low. Player numbers on Steam have gone back to around 40-50 players at peak times, and it was only at around 120-150 players at peak times during the beginning of the Hades update. Moreover, I don't see how raising your MMR by winning matches as a Raider in cooperative PvE play, should affect the AI difficulty when you invade as an Antagonist or when you're invaded by an Antagonist. Being good at PvE or PvP in this game requires slightly different skillsets, and this 'one size fits all' MMR system doesn't really appreciate this nuance. I would much rather the MMR system be tied directly to PvP interactions, but even so, giving a huge crutch to low MMR Antagonists by providing them with deadlier AI enemies that essentially carry them to victory, is not how the PvP in this game should be balanced. Having a high MMR doesn't really help you at all in PvP, as the AI will do nothing for you if you invade as an Antagonist, and will be just as deadly, if not more so, when you're invaded. Having a high MMR in PvE just makes the game even more difficult, and increases the grind. Moreover, trying to introduce new players into the game becomes even harder for me, as the matches are usually stuck at around 60% difficulty, and these newer players are not having a fun time trying to learn the game when the AI enemies just cut them down in an instant.

I would very much like a developer response to these issues. Prior to the Hades update, there was a 'hidden' MMR system that increased the difficulty level as you won more and more matches. This was done to keep the game 'challenging', but seems more like a way for developers to prevent players from grinding or farming efficiently, and as a way to artificially lengthen and pad out the game.

As it stands now, post-Hades update, being 'good' at this game, and winning matches consistently, is something the MMR system punishes you with both in PvP and PvE, by trying to make you lose. I'm not quite sure why the developers would use such a system that essentially penalizes its most enthusiastic players. I have put up with quite a lot from this game since its release, but this system is severely trying my patience, and is probably pushing a lot of other players away.

Was in the aforementioned game with Drow. Done some more testing. To quickly summarise, it seems to me, that if you're in a 3 or 4 man squad, and an Antagonist invades, the AI enemies will become stronger than they normally are. My MMR was around 90%, and other players in the group were probably around 65-80 or so, so maybe the game was tipping the scales in favour of the Antagonist due to MMR differences. Not sure what Drow's MMR was/is. Usually playing matches with friends at around the 70-80% difficulty range. Whilst the enemies at that difficulty are fairly tough, they're not nearly as strong as the ones you go up against when you're in a squad versus an Antagonist.

Had another similar experience on Low Blow, with an AFK Antagonist, whilst being in a 4 man squad. The Hades troopers were doing around 200 damage in one melee Strike, a rifleman could down anyone that wasn't 5th Council in a short burst of fire, and they had around 800+ health or so. Friend playing Schleuder Ginebra was landing 500-600 damage ricochet shots and wasn't killing regular Hades troops in one shot. Even the engineers had over 400 health. Moreover, they were constantly spawning, so we couldn't make any headway and were pretty much trapped in spawn. Had to surrender.

Played a few matches against Antagonists in solo queue with random players, and the AI enemies in those situations were not as overpowered as the two above examples. However, I was usually paired up with lower level/lower skill Raiders, going up against a decent to strong Antagonist player. Probably MMR system trying to balance things out. Somewhat stressful.

Against skilled Antagonists (70-75% Antagonist skill), whilst playing in a squad, the AI enemies were still stronger than normal. Managed to win a few games despite this, but it was a huge slog, and the rewards were rather paltry. In most cases, the AI enemies are so strong that the Antagonist doesn't really need to do much to win. System seems to greatly overcompensate if a lower skilled Antagonist goes up against a higher skilled squad of Raiders. It's more expeditious to simply surrender, and queue for another game, in such situations. I don't really like to lose due to such factors outside of my control.

Seems like a recent change. I was playing in 4 man squads at the beginning of the Hades update, and never noticed the AI being this overpowered. Likewise, when playing Antagonist, the AI were not really winning the game by themselves for me. I might need to play Antagonist mode a little, and see how strong/weak the AI is, to see if it has any relation to my MMR.

Antagonist mode largely a waste of time. Raiders stand to gain very little and lose a lot; in time, XP gained, and rewards earnt. Antagonists don't really earn all that much, even on a win, when compared to just farming in a 4 man group with Bounty/Treasure Hunter weapons.

MMR system and uncontrollable difficulty levels just seem to be made to punish players that win consistently. I feel like I'm on a treadmill, and someone's constantly raising the incline. Game is already a huge grind without having to deal with queue times, ever tougher enemies, and Antagonist invasions, along with the stress of having to carry randoms and worrying about MMR loss. It's just so tiresome.

Would rather have PvE and PvP modes separated, and selectable difficulty levels in PvE with scaling rewards. Playing games with lower level players at 50-60% difficulty is such a cakewalk, and the rewards are pretty much the same as when beating maps at 70-80% difficulty.

PvP mode should have vastly inflated rewards for those who participate in it. Double, triple, or even quadruple than what it is now, for both Raiders and Antagonists. Should probably scale rewards for Raiders based on level completion, rather than through binary win/lose state. If they get through say, 50-66% of a level against an Antagonist and lose, their rewards should be about the same as if they had completed a level without an Antagonist. Antagonist rewards should probably be more weighted to kills and time delay, rather than outright winning or losing.

People should feel happy/excited spending time in 4v1 mode, win or lose. As it stands, mostly a waste of time, that people can't opt out of.

Hope developer reads. Not sure. Will await without expectation.

P.S. In Shock map seems overtuned at the moment. Played a 73% difficulty game there without an Antagonist, and 5th Council enemies had higher health and were dealing more damage than normal. Playing In Medias Res and Weapon from the Past at around 70% difficulty, the 5th Council enemies there were much easier to deal with. Not sure if it's some sort of bug/glitch. Don't recall In Shock being this difficult at beginning of Hades update.